Historical Explanation Morton G. White Mind, New Series, Vol. 52, No. 207. (Jul., 1943), pp. 212-229. Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0026-4423%28194307%292%3A52%3A207%3C212%3AHE%3E2.0.CO%3B2-A Mind is currently published by Oxford University Press.
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11.-HISTORICAL
EXPLANATION.
HISTORIANSand philosophers frequently speak of what they call historical explanations. Some explanations, they say, are physical, others chemical, and still others historical. In this paper I shall discuss several questions which arise in connection with the concept historical explanation. First I shall consider the view, which is widely held, that a historical explanation is 'one that involves a reference to the past in ;way that distinguishes it from all other kinds of explanations. But more concretely, the proposed analysis of the phrase " historical explanation " which I shall consider is the one according to which a historical explanation explains facts prevailing a t one timeoby reference to facts prevailing a t an earlier time.l I shall try to state this view as clearly as I can, and then try to show that it is enticing, but incorrect, because it prevents us from distinguishing many explanations which we call non-historical from historical explanations. In the remainder of the paper I shall try to show how the problem of analysing historical explanation is connected' with the general problem of analysing what it means to say that an explanation is of a certain kind. The paper does not present a definition of " historical explanation ", but in its attempt to clarify some problems preliminary to the presentation of such a definition, it may be regarded as an introduction to a logical analysis of history. 1
I
When one distinguishes a physical explanation from a biological explanation, or from a chemical explanation, one has a fixed meaning of the word " explanation " in mind. The physical, chemical, and biological explanations are all regarded as explanations in the same sense of that word. When one goes on to compare historical explanations with these other explanations, the presumption is that the word " explanation " has not shifted in meaning. All these explanations differ only in being different kinds of explanations. I stress what may seem to some very obvious only because I do think that it is possible that the word Thus, Prof. Hugh Miller in his History and Science (Berkeley, 1939) says : " a genetic science is one which understands the present in the light of the past " (p. 21).
explanation " when it appears in the phrase " historical explanation " means something different from what it means 'when it appears, say, in the phrase " physical explanation ". But, although I admit the logical possibility of the word being so ambiguously used, I admit no more than a logical possibility. For I think that an examination of the usage of historians and philosophers shows that when they speak of historical explanations, they do not use some other sense of the word "explanation". What other meaning might be reasonably attached to the word by an analyst of usage, I do not know, but I think it just as well to record this possibility, if only to make explicit one of my own assumptions. For purposes of the present paper I shall accept a brief analysis of scientific explanation recently presented by C. G. Hempel. Hempel says : <<
" The explanation of the occurrenoe of an event of some specific kind E a t a certain place and time consists, as i t is0usuaUy expressed, in indicating the causes or determining factors of E. Now the assertion that a set of events-say, of the kinds C,, C, . C,-have caused the event to be explained, amounts to the statement that, according to certain general laws, a set of events of the kinds mentioned is regularly accompanied by an event of the kind E. Thus, the scientific explanation of the event in question consists of (1) a set of statements asserting the occurrence of certain events C,, . . . C, at certain times and places, (2) a set of universal hypotheses, such that ( a )the statements of both groups are reasonably well coniirmed by empirical evidence, ( b ) from the two groups of statements the sentence asserting the occurrence of event E can be logically deduced."
..
.
As an illustration, consider the following. Someone discovers that the part of Fifth Avenue, New York City, lying between 42nd and 43rd Streets (" f" for short) is wet a t 4 P.M.,April 1, 1942. He asks why, and is given the answer : " Because f was rained on a t 3.59 P.M., April 1, 1942." The univeksal hypothesis which, in conjunction with the second singular statement, permits the deduction of the statement designating the explained fact, is : If any object is rained on a t time t, then it will be wet one minute after t. Put schematically, using " W " as the name of the relation expressed by the formula " x is wet a t time t ", and " R " as the name of the relation expressed by the formula " x is rained on at time t ", we have the following deductive argument. 1. f B 3.59 P.M.,April 1, 1942, 2. For every x and for every t, if x R t, then x W one minute after t. C. G. ~ e d ~ e"lThe , Function of General Laws in History ", Journal of Philosophy, vol. 39, p. 36 (1942).
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MORTON G . ~ H I T E:
Therefore, 3. f W 4 P.M.,April 1, 1942. The structure of this explanation is fairly clear. The first statement asserts that a certain material object has a certah relation to a certain date. The second asserts that if an object has a certain relation to a certain date, then that object will have another relation to another date. Not all explanations fall into this pattern ; but this is a very common sub-class of the class of explanations. I choose it both because of its simplicity and because it is an explanation in which a fact prevailing a t one time is explained in terms of a fact prevailing at an earlier 'time. So far as I am able to discover, this explanation furnishes us with the pattern for what some people call historical explanations. Let us compare it with an explanation which would not be called historical on this view. Consider the kind of explanation in which the fact explained i s designated by a statement of the form x E P, i.e. a statement asserting that an object is a member of a class. For want of a more interesting example a t the moment, consider the statement " a e mortal ", where " a " names some entity. Suppose someone should ask : " Why is a mortal ? " and that someone else should reply : " Because a is a man ". The scheme of this explanation is : 1. a E man. 2. For every x, if x e man, then x E mortal.
Therefore,
3. a e mortal. The two explanations we have considered differ in at least one very important respect. The first can be described as an explanation in which a fact prevailing at one time is explained by reference $0 a fact prevailing at an earlier time. The fact that f is rained on a t 3.59 may be said to be earlier than the fact that it is wet a t 4. The second explanation cannot be described in this way. The fact thdt a is a ?an is no earlier than the fact that a is mortal. The main difference between both explanations depends upon the difference between the generalisations that guide them. I n the case of the illustration about Fifth Avenue, a generalisation is involved which refers to a date t in its antecedent, whereas the consequent contains a reference to a date later than t by some fixed amount of time. This is not true of the second illustration. It must not be inferred that the difference between the first and second illustrations depends solely on the fact that the singular statements in the first express relations between objects
HISTORICAL EXPLPNATION.
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and dates, or on the fact that the generalisation which guides the first contains a time-variable exp1icitly.l For the following case provides a good counter-example, Let us assume that the statement, " Whenever Chinamen eat, they eat with chopstick4 " is true. Now suppose I ask why Chiang is eating with chopsticks at 7 P.M., May 1, 1942, and this is explained as follows : 1. Chiang e Chinaman and Chiang is eating a t 7. 2. For every x and for every t, if x E Chinaman and x is eating at t, then x is eating with chopsticks at t. Therefore, 3. Chiang is eating with chopsticks a t This is an explanation in which the slngular statements t a l e the form x R t, and yet one which would not be called an explanation which explains a fact prevailing a t one time by reference to a n earlier fact. Clearly, the fact that Chiang is a Chinaman who is eating a t 7 is no earlier than the fact that he eats with cho2sticks a t 7. The point to be stressed is that the generalisation immediately above is not one which refers to diflerent dates in its antecedent and c o n s e q ~ e n t . ~ Having interpreted the view as I have, I shall now state my objection to it. The point is that there are explanations which would be called physical, others which would be called chemical, and others which would be called bidogical, all of which must hz called historical, on the view. For instance, if one explains tht3 present relative positions of the sun, the moon, and the earth, by reference to their relative positions one yzar ago, one is giving a historical explanation on the view under consideration.
7.
E. Zilsel, in his paper " Physics and the Problem of Historico-sociological Laws ", Philosophy of Science, vol. 8, pp. 573 ff. (1941),distinguishes between what he calls temporal laws and simultaneity-laws by saying t h a t the former contain time-variables explicitly, whereas the latter do not. My point is that there are laws which contain the time-variable explicitly, and which would not be called " temporal ", i.e. would not be said ts connect facts prevailing a t different times. They could be what Zilsel calls " simultaneity laws " and still contain the time-variable explicitly. I have, in the above, formulated as clearly as I can, the view that a historical explanation is one that explains the present in terms of the past. One of the conditions which guided my interpretation is that the holders of this view want to distinguish historical explanations from other kinds. I n the light of this they could not have in mind the sense in which all explanations explain the present i n terms of the past. 1 have in mind the fact that every explanation presupposes a generalisation, and that every generalisation is dependent for its verification upon some facts which are past. If they had meant this by the phrase " explain the present in-terms of the past, or by reference to the past ", they would have to call all explanations historical, and surely this is hot their intention.
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Obviously the statement of their positions one year ago expresses a fact earlier than the one which expresses their present positions. Furthermore, the laws of mechanics, which figurein the explanation, connect facts prevailing a t different times. But we do not want our analysis to result in the statement that one explanation is both mechanical and historical. One of the conditions we impose on our analysis is that it permit us to deny this possibility. Put in other words, we are assuming that the phrase " historical explanation " is so used that we cannot say of an explanation, without impropriety, that it is both physical and historical. It is not my intention to deny that one could use the phrase " historical explanation " so that historical explanations (in this arbitrary sense) would turn up in all sciences. No doubt the kind of explanation that explains present facts by referring to past facts (in the above sense) is an interesting kind, and one that does appear in all the sciences. But if we are interested in analysing what is actually fieant by the phrase " historical explanation ", we should do well to assign another name to the class of explanations that explain present facts in terms of past facts. Although we have rejected one analysis of the phrase " historical explanation ", we have not thereby destroyed the possibility of its having another meaning. Indeed, we have implied that it does. But since we have tried to show that explaining present facts by means of past facts does not distinguish historical explanations from others, we must have some general idea of the criteria which serve to distinguish different kinds of explanations from each other. The next part of the paper, therefore, will be devoted to an analysis of what it means to say that one explanation is different in kind from another.
An explanation, we have seen, is a constellation of statements. We have also seen that some explanations are said to be different in kind from others ; some are said to be physical, others chemical, and others historical. If we believe that the terms " physical ", and " chemical " are on a par with the term " historical " when all these are applied to explanations, then the general method we use in distinguishing a chemical explanation from a physical explanation is the one we use in order to distinguish a historical explanation from other kinds of explanations. The problem, if it is conceived in this way, involves a consideration of the relation between an explanation and the
.
HISTORICAL EXPLANATION.
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discivline in which it is arl ex~lanation. When we sav that a given explanation e is a physical explanation, and that another, f,is a chemical explanation, both of these statements may be regarded as instances of the statement form : x is an S-ical " explanation, where for " x " we put names of particular explanations, and for '.'X " initial fragments of the names of sciences, e.g. " chem ", " biolog ", " histor ", etc. It will be recalled that one of the conditions we thought an analysis of " historical explanation " should satisfy was that no explanation could be both a historical explanation and some other kind of explanation. This is true, not onlv for historical explanations, but for all kinds of explanations. The condition may now be stated quite generally. It amounts to saying that the formula " x is an X-ical ex~lanation" exmesses a functional, or many-one relation between x and X. Normally a biologist who has discovered a certain singular biological fact looks to the laws of biology and to other biological facts for his ex~lanation. I n such a case the statement expressing the fact t L b e explained is a biological statement, so is the generalisation that guides the explanation, and so is the statement expressing the so-called initial condition. Here, we would say that the biologist is presenting a biological explanation, the reason being that every statement in the explanation is a biological truth. We define a biological explanation, therefore, as an ex~lanation evervone of whose constituent statements is a biAlogical truth. d ~ n the d definition may be generalised, so that to say that x is an X-ical explanation is to say that every statement of x is an 8-ical truth. If we push the analysis further we have to ask what it means to say that, a given statement is a n 8-ical truth. J. H. Woodger has presented a rigorous formalisation of a part of biology which permits us to discuss this question in a concrete way.l He presents, in his monograph, The Technique of Theory Construction, a sample biological theory which he calls T. T, of course, does not include all of biology ; it is only a part of biology. Prom a methodological point of view, however, it serves our purpose, since it serves to elicit the points we have in mind. At first, the consideration of this theory may seem colossally irrelevant to the problem of historical explanation. Later, it is to be hoped, its relevance will be obvious. The first point of significance is the distinction Woodger makes J. H. Woodger, The Aziomutic Method in Biology (Cambridge, 1937) also a monograph, The Technique of Theory Construction, International Encyclopedia of Unified Science, Vol. 2, no. 5 (Chicago, 1939).
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between two kinds of c0nstants.l Constallts are either (a) logical constants or (b) subject-matter or descriptive constants. The logical constants-those like " not ", " and ", " or ", " some ", and " all "-are those which appear in every scientific theory, and not only in the specifically biological theory T. The subjectmatter constants of the theory are " P ", " T ", and " cell ". " P " denotes the relation part of, "T "the relation before in time, and " cell " denotes the class of biological cells. All the signs other than these three which appear in the theory T are either logical ,constants, variables, or subject-matter constants which can be defined with the help of the three primitives, logical constants, and variables. After specifying the various ways in which statements may be formed in this theory, Woodger goes on to set up a list of statements which he calls Part I of the theory T. These are all logical truths-statements from the calculus of propositions, the calculus of classes, the calculus of bjnary relations, etc.which figure in the proofs to be made later on. It turns out, then, that Woodger's biological theory T contains one part comprising only logical truths. Logic, it is then said, is a discipline which precedes the specifically biological part of the theory. To say that logic precedes or that it is presupposed means that " all expressions and laws of logic are treated on an equal footing wit'h the primitive terms and axioms of the discipline under construction ; the logical terms are used in the formulation of the axiom3, theorems and definitions, for instance, without an explanation of their meaning, and the logical laws are applied in proofs without first establishing their validity." Thus, we see that in so far as sqme logical truths appear in llroodger's theory T there are some truths in it which are not speci$c to T. The important point is that every theory can have its statements divided into two classes-those which are statements of the disciplines presupposed by the theory, and those which are specific to the theory. In the case of Woodgzr's theory, Part I is said to contain all and only those statements coming from theories presupposed by T, whereas Part I1 is said to contain all and only those which are specific to T. If we regard all statements, regardless of whether they fall into Part I or Part 11 as statements of T-or, in our idiom, as T-ical statements-we construe the notion of T-ical statement in a very wide sense. l This distinction is drawn in Alfred Tarski's Introduction to Logic (p. 18). Woodger's discussion involves an application of this point to a concrete, simpIe exampIe. Tarski, op. cit., p. 119.
HISTORICAL EXPLANATION.
219
Not only those statements which we normally regard as statements of the science are said to be statements of the science, but also those which come from sciences presupposed by the science. In order to avoid ambiguity, we shall, hereafter, distinguish carefully between the phrase " S-ical " and the phrase " specifically S-ical ", for any science S. If we return now to the problem that turned our attention to Woodger's iheory, we must revise our definition of " S-ical explanation ". We said, it will be recalled, that an S-ical explanation is an explanation every one of whose constituent statements is an S-ical truth. We should revise that to read : .an S-ical explanation is an explanation every one of whose constituent statements is a specijically S-ical truth.l What, now, is a specifically S-ical truth ? A specifically S-ical truth is one that contains some specifically 8-icnl terms in an essential way.2 On Woodger's analysis, the statement that the relation P is transitive seems to be regarded as a specifically T-ical truth.3 It is considered a specifically T-ical truth because it contains at least one subject-matter constant of T in an essential way. I have included the condition that the statement contain subject-matter constants in an essential way in order to prevent statements like " Whatever is a cell is a cell " from being called specifically T-ical. In this statement the constant " cell " appears, but it does not appear essentially, i.e. any other word which could, with grammatical correctness, be put in place of " cell " would leave the statement thus formed true. On the other hand, this is not so in the case of the statement " P is transitive ", since there are some replacements for " P " which would yield a falsehood. Thus, there are two conditions that a specifically T-ical truth must satisfy : .
'
I It should be noted that Hempel's definition of " explanation ", which we have adopted, excludes logical truths from the class of statements constituting an explanation. If it did not, our class of explanations, i.e. the class of S-ical explanations, where " S " took as substituends the initial fragments of names of ,empirical sciences, would be empty. This would be the case because some logical truths would always figure as premises of deductions, and their presence would assure the presence of some truths not specifically S-ical. I t is very important to remember that " S " can take as substituends only the initial fragments of the names of empirical sciences. The definition would fail in the case of specifically logical truths. It is not true to say that a specifically logical truth is the same as a truth that contains some specifically logical terms in an essential way. All statements contain some specifically logical terms in an essential way. Below we shall consider the question whether Woodger would be right, from our point of view, in saying that this statemgnt is specific to T.
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(1) it must contain specifically T-ical terms, and (2) these terms must occur essentially in some p1aces.l Two things should be observed in connection with the definition of " S-ical explanation " that we have presented. 'First of all. if we define an S-ical explanation as one which is composed solely of specifically S-ical truths, it follows that the formula " x is an S-ical explanation " expresses a many-one relation, because. for any explanation x we choose, there is no more than one S. such that x is an S-ical explanation. This, we remember, is one of the conditions we imposed on our analysis. The second point to be observed is that whether an explanation is S-ical depends ultimately. on whether specifically S-ical terms appear in it. It f o l l o ~ ~from ~ s this that the existence of historical explanations depends upon the existence of specifically historical terms. We have, in \\-hat may seem to be a very roundabout ~iv"y. reached one of the most serious problems of the paper. Sre there any specifically historical terms ? If there are, what are they ?
Before going on to the direct consideration of these questions, is necessary to make a few more general observations. Because logical constants are used in the formulation of statements in Tl'oodger's theory T, and because logical la\\-s are used in making deductions in the theory, logic is said to be a discipline which precedes or which is presupposed by this small part of biology. It should not be thought, however, that logic is the only discipline that an empirical science can presuppose, even though logic is presupposed by every empirical science. 9 given empirical science may presuppose, in addition to logic, other empirical sciences. This fact is even demonstrated by TToodger's theory T. Although T\700dger makes only a bipartite distinction between the constants which figure in his theory-between those which . are logical, and those which are descriptive-it is possible to make a tripartite distinction if one thinks of the number of disciplines whose terms are involved in his small theory T. It will be recalled that Woodger listed three signs as his subjectmatter constants, without making any distinction between them. One was " P ", denoting the relation spatial part of, the second was " T " denoting the relation before 4% time, and the third was For a detailed analysis of the notion of the essential occurrence of a term, see W. V. Quine, " Truth by Convention ", Philosophical Essays for Alfred North Whitehead.
HISTORICAL EXPLANATION.
22 1
" cell ", denoting the class of cells, in the biological sense. An examination of these three constants will show that the first two are distinc(1y different from the last in a certain respect. The expressions " is a spatial part of ", and " is before in time ", appear in many scientific discussions which do not deal with biological matters. They are terms that are not specific to biology, and therefore not specific to the small part of biology which Woodger formalises in his monograph. They, like the logical terms, may be regarded as terms taken over from other disciplines. Therefore, those truths in Woodger's theory which contain either or both " P " and " T " as their only essential, non-logical constants, may also be regarded as truths which are not specific to the theory T. These terms come from disciplines in which they are treated independently of any biological terms like " cell ".l
IV. After all these discussions of general methodological points,
I should like to return now to the main problem of the paperthe issues involved in the analysis of the phrase " historical explanation ". It will be recalled that one of our previous conclusions is that if historical is a speciatcase of 8-ical explanation, as we have defined " 8-ical explanation ", then a necessary condition for the existence of historical explanations is the existence of specifically historical terms. It should be obvious from the start that the search for the terms which are specific to history provides the most difficult problem of its kind. If we proceed empirically, and examine history books in an effort to determine which terms are specific to history we find ourselves in a morass, chiefly because of the number of terms which come from other sciences. The matter is not as simple as it is in connection with Woodger's small theory. There we find it relatively easy to single out those terms which are specific to the theory, as opposed to those coming from presupposed sciences. Woodger's theory is axiomatised and therefore it presents us with the answer to the question we are interested in, to a certain extent. It provides, from our point of view, a logical analysis of the theory. If we could do for history what Woodger has done for a small part of biology, we should have answers to some of the questions raised in this paper. But one " The general theory of the concept ' part of' has been developed by S. Lesniewski under the name of Mereologie ",Tarski says in the appendix he contributes to Woodger's Axiomatic Method, p. 161, n. 1.
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would hardly be making an unguarded claim if one called this unlikely. Although there is nothing self-contradictory in the idea of an axiomatised history, I do not think that we can plausibly expect it to be fulfilled. But it does not follow from this that we are not able to state some of the terms which are specific to history. This is a much smaller order, and can be accomplished, in many cases, without setting up a rigorous axiomsystem for the discipline under consideration. Surely this is the case for economics, for instance. The fact that history is neither axiomatised nor likely to be axiomatised, therefore, is not a serious difficulty. An examination of any history book will reveal terms that would hardly be called specifically historical and yet which are necessary for the expression of what are called " historical facts ". Take a simple statement of historical fact like " Constantine defeated Maxentius a t the Milvan Bridge,on October 28, 312 ", which is likely to appear in any history of the Roman Empire. Although it is highly unlikely that the term " defeated " is a physical term, and although many philosophers hold that the terms " Maxentius " and " Constantine " are nbt physical terms, there can be no doubt about the terms " the Milvan Bridge " and " October 28, 312 ". The last two are names of places and times, and these are surely not specific to history ; they are physical terms which are essential to the expression of a historical fact in the way that logical constants are. But because there are terms in this statement which occur in it essentially and which are neither logical nor physical, we cannot call it a physical statement. However, there are other statements which appear in history books which are composed of only physical and logical constants ; in short, there are physical statements which\appear in history books. To take a simple example, a historian of the middle ages tells us that Anjou, Normandy, and Gascony were shaken by earthquakes in 1207, 1214, and 1223 respective1y.l Thus history may be said to presuppose physics. The same historian tells us of the existence of famine in twelfth-century France. " Famine " is no physical term, but it is not a specifically historical term. Thus history also presupposes biology, or whatever science contains the word " famine ". The relation of presupposition, as it has been defined, helps us to clarify the statement, frequently made by philosophers, that many " factors " enter into history. Without going into this in detail, we may say that part of what this means is that historical statements frequently contain terms from other sciences, and that historical A. Luchaire, social France in the time of Philip Augustus, p. 1.
works contain empirical statements that are not historical. In short, it means that history presupposes an enormous number of sciences other than itse1f.l Let us continue our comparison of the statement " Anjou was shaken by an earthquake in 1207 " ; and " Constantine defeated Maxentius a t the Milvan Bridge on October 28, 312 ". We have observed that the first is historical, but not specifically historical, whereas the second is a specifically historical statement. Two points follow : First, that an explanation made up solely of statements of the first kind (i.e. historical, but not specifically historical statements) would not be a historical explanation. This is shown by the fact that a seismological explanation of why the earthquake took place in Anjou in 1207, would not be called a historical explanation. It also follows that an explanation of why Constantine defeated Maxentius, if it contained as constituents only specifically historical truths,. would be a historical explanation. These two points deserve elaboration. (1) The fact that a historian would not be impelled to explain why an earthquake took place in Anjou in 1207 indicates the role which physical statements play i11 history. In general, physical statements will appear only if the historian believes that they can serve as initial statements in an explanation terminating in a specifically historical statement. I n other words, physical truths appear in history books, not because historians are interested in physics, but rather because they are interested in all the facts which will help them explain specifically historical facts. This is not only true of physical statements, but of all statements coming from sciences which are presupposed by history. This brings us to our comment about Constantine's defeat of Maxentius in the last paragraph. In saying that an explanation of why Constantine defeated Maxentius would be historical, it was specified that this explanation had to contain " only specifically historical truths ". The need for this condition, of course, flows directly from our definition of " historical explanation ". But it also reveals an important possibility which we have only mentioned, but have not discussed. I t implies the possibility that a specifically historical fact might be explained by referring, not to specifically historical facts, but to facts that are not specifically historical. In other words, it suggests a distinction between what we have called a historical explanation and an explanation of a specifically historical fact. In this respect history may be taken as the opposite extreme of logic, which presupposes no science.,
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Not all explanations of specifically historical facts are historical explanations. Luchaire,l after discussing the various famines in twelfthcentury France, says : " Famine produced brigandage ". The illustration suits our point very well. No doubt the generalisationinvolved is not very clear, and one might hesitate before saying that all famines are followed by an amount of brigandage which would not follow if famine did not occur. Nevertheless, whatever qualifications are necessary to make the generalisation involved true, the resulting statements would contain the terms " famine " and "brigandage ". It is reasonable to construe "famine " as a biological term and " brigandage " as a historical term. It would also seem that the initial statements in the explanation express a biological fact to the effect that a group of people were in a certain biological state. The statement deduced, however, would express something to the effect that a group of people were in a certain social state. The generalisat"lon which, when conjoined with the biological statement, implies the specifically historical statement, would contain both biological and specifically historical terms. Taken all in all, the explanation would not be historical simply because of the appearance of one specifically biological statement, i.e. the statement of the fact that the famine occurred. This raises a very important question. Are there, it may be -. asked, any explanations of the kind we have just discussed ? In other words, are there any explanations of specifically historical facts which appeal only to biological facts in the manner of the above explanation. When this question is raised we are forced to examine our illustration more carefully. We must ask whether the historian really intended to say that the mere presence of a certain biological phenomenon was enough to account for the specifically historical phenomenon that followed. Is it not likely, we may ask, that the historian would have to qualify his generalisation : " Famine produced brigandage ", so that it would read : " Famine, together with another condition designated by a specifically historical term, produced brigandage " ? If this question is answered in the affirmative then we might be impelled to raise the same question about all explanations which are supposed to explain historical facts by reference to only nonhistorical facts. If it can be shown that all the generalisations involved have to be revised in the way suggested, it is obvious that the statement of an initial condition would never be anything . but a specifically historical statement. The generalisation Op,cit., p. 18.
HISTORICAL EXPLANATION.
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guiding the explanation would relate the appearance of famine plus some specifically historical condition, with the specifically historical condition to be explained, and the statement of the initial condition mould involve an affirmation of the antecedent of the generalisation. But the antecedent of such a generalisation would assert the presence of a specifically historical condition and another condition. The mere presence of a specifically historical term in this conjunction of statements, however, ~ ~ o u l d make the conjunction a specifically historical statement. Nox7, the generalisation guiding the explanation also contains a specifically historical term in an essential way, and therefore it too is a specifically historical statement. The same is obviously true of the statement expressing the fact to be exp1ained.l Since all three constituent statements are specifically historical, the explanation is a historical explanation. The auestion which is raised is one whose answer I am not able to give. The problem, however, is fairly clear. We must try to find out whether there are explanations of historical facts which are not historical explanations, the latter phrase being interpreted as we have in this paper. I
Thus far, although me have spoken frequently of specifically historical terms, x7ehave not stated explicitly what we mean by the term " specifically historical term ". The reader has been given some suggestions, but a t no point have we defined the notion. The present section of the paper mill not terminate xx~ithsuch a definition. In it, however, an attempt ~7illbe made to remove certain misunderstandings of the problem. JTe have seen how history presupposes other sciences. It presupposes physics insofar as it refers to times and places, and assumes the truth of physical lams ; it also presupposes physics The following question may be raised. Since the generalisation which guides an explanation of a specifically historical fact, is a specifically historical statement, a r d since the explanation may be regarded as composed of two statements-the statement to be deduced and a conjunction of all others-and since this conjunction, insofar as it contains the generalisation, is a specifically historical statement, why isn't every explanation of a historical fact a historical statement ? Obviously the statement expressing the fact to be explained is specifically historical, and so is any conjunction containing a specifically historical statement, specifically historical. To meet this question adequately we should be forced to define the notion constituent of a n explanation so that the conjunction of a generalisation guiding an explanation and statements of initial conditions, is not a statement which is a constituent of a n explanation.
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insofar as it tries to establish as many singular physical truths as will contribute to the explanation of specifically historical facts. History also presupposes sciences like chemistry and biology. In fact, it seems almost impossible to put a limit on the number of sciences history does presuppose. Thus far we have mentioned only the sciences which do not study the specifically human or purposive behaviour of human beings. But obviously history presupposes all of the sciences that deal with human purposive behaviour. In fact, the difficult thing is to say where they stop and where history begins. In other words, the terms which are specific to sciences dealing with purposive .human behaviour seem so characteristic of history that we are not able to say whether they are terms from presupposed science or speoific to history itself. It seems clear that one part of these terms are not specific to history, namely, those which come from what is called " individual psychology ". If anything, singular statements in individual psychology which appear in history books appear there because they may help explain social facts, or cultural facts.l But even if we agree that the terms which are terms of individual psychology are not specific to history, we still have to deal with all those terms that come from sciences of social behaviour. The t'endency of historians in the .last century has been to stress the fact that history is a study of social or cultural phenomena. Some find the origins of this view in Guizot, Thierry,. and Mignet ; others emphasise Marx's decisive role in the formation of this approach ; still others find it in the writings of historians like Lamprecht, and Pirenne; James Harvey Robinson has called it " The New Historv ". This tendencv. as we view it in the language of this paier, incorporates ti;; admission that history presupposes all the social sciences. But, it might be thought, if history is to be a discipline distinct from the others, then, over and above what it takes from other sciences, it must containterms that are neither economic, nor sociological; nor anthropological, etc. But if this condition is imposed, i.e. if all these sciences are regarded as distinct from history, and if the historian is expected to produce terms which fall into none of these sciences, it will be impossible for the historian to establish the uniqueness of his discipline. No examination of history books will yield terms that cannot be classified as terms from some other science. If one imposes this task on the historian in search E. Zilsel (op. cit.) says : " Psychological laws deal with the behaviour. of human individuals, historical laws with large groups of individuals, . . . with cultures, states, nations, oooupations, classes
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of terms specific to history, one cannot hope to define " historical statement " or " historical explanation " as different from other kinds of statements and explanations. An actual study of the predicates which the historian regards as those with which he is especially concerned, will not permit any sharp distinction between them and what are commonly If it is the purpose of the historian called sociological predi~ates.~ to give a picture of the social structure and development of a given society, then historical statements will not be distinguish-, able from sociological statements. The same holds for historical and sociological explanations. The point may be illustrated by reference to the recent work of Prof. F. J. Teggart-Rome and China (1939). Prof. Teggart emphasises the need for a consideration of classes of events in order to establish what he calls " causation in historical events " and therefore " historical laws ". I n order to illustrate his methodological point he chooses the class*of barbarian invasions of the Roman Empire between 58 B.C. and A.D. 107. The first result of his investigation-the chief feature of which is the comparison of events occurring in different places throughout the world a t that time-is that every uprising between 58 B.C. and A.D. 107 on the European borders of theEmpire had been preceded by the outbreak of war either on the eastern frontiers of the Empire or in the Western Regions of the Chinese. More specifically, Teggart claims, " whereas wars in the Roman east were followed uniformly and always by disturbances on the lower Danube and the Rhine, wars in the eastern T7ien Shan were followed uniformly and always by disturbances on the Danube between Vienna and Budapest." If we consider the term " barbarian invasion of the Roman Empire-during the period 58 B.C. to A.D. 107 ", as designating a class of events, we must ask whether it is specifically historical in a sense which would prevent it from being a term of sociology. The class denoted by this term, of course, is a complex one. It Hempel, in the paper cited above, says : " The considerations developed in this paper are entirely neutral with respect to the problem of ' specifically historical laws ' ; neither do they presuppose a particular way of distinguishing historical from sociological and other laws, nor do they imply the assumption that empirical laws can be found which are historic in some specific sknse " (p. 47). I n the present paper I am not neutral ; in fact, I think that the phrases " sociological term " and " specifically historical term " designate the same class of terms. F. J. Teggart, " Causation in Historical Events ", Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 3, pp. 8-9 (1942). This article contains a useful summary of the results of Teggart's Rome and China.
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is the result of performing logical operations on other classes ; it is a logical product of a t least three classes. The first is the class of invasions, symbolically " I " ; the second the class of activities carried on by barbarians, " B " ; the third, the class of events which went on in the Roman Empire between 58 B.C. and A.D. 107, " D ". As a term, this could be replaced by the term " I . B . D ", where " . " is the sign for logical product of classes. This new. class-name means the same thing as " the 'class of barbarian invasions of the Roman Empire during the period 58 B.G. to A.D. 107 ". . The reason for breaking the latter down into simpler components is to show that it is constructed out of terms which are, I think, sociological and physical. The term " I " could be said to be a sociological term, because it designates a class of group-actions ; the property of being a n invasion is assigned to actions of masses of people. The term " B " is sociological for the same reason. The remaining term, " D ", is physical. The only remainigg sign is the sign for class-product, which is logical. The fact that a term in a supposedly historical statement like Teggart's can be constructed out of sociological, physical, and logical terms, shows that statements which are normally called historical might, without impropriety, also be called sociological. That the same could be done for most laws which are called historical or sociological is a hypothesis which I believe, but which I shall not try to prove at the moment. It suggests that whatever the terms which are specific to history are, they are not any different from those of sociology, where the latter is construed as the science of society. The only difference which could be said to exist between sociology and history is not based on the descriptive terms they contain, but rather on the logical terms they contain. It might be said that sociology contains the generalisations of the singular statements that appear in history. Such a distinction, although it is one that is fostered and practised by many historians and sociologists, amounts to the schoolboy's distinction between algebra and arithmetic. Arithmetic, corresponding to history, is said to contain statements like " 5 4 = 4 5 ", but not statements like " For every x and y, x y = y x ". The latter is said to occur in algebra. But we know that such a distinction is artificial and arbitrary. It is a distinction between two sciences on the basis of the amount of logic they use ; for we know that the difference between the first and second statements is that the first involves the logical operation of quantification, whereas the second does not. We feel that sciences should
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not be distinguished on the basis of the amount of logic they use. Similarly, for sociology and history. If they only differ in the way that algebra and arithmetic differ for the schoolboy, there is no serious philosophic problem. One must observe, however, that whereas the schoolbook's distinction between algebra and arithmetic may have some pedagogic value, the distinction between sociology and history is stultifying. It separates the finding of fact and the formulating of laws into two distinct disciplines. VI. Summa~y.-A historical explanation is not an explanation of present facts in terms of past facts. The determination of the type of an explanation depends upon the terms which appear in it. Because of the great number of sciences presupposed by history, it is difficult to say which terms are specific to history. When we are able to present the terms 'which are specific to history we shall be able to d e h e " historical explanation ". We may be sure, however, that whatever these terms are, they will not be different from sociological terms. The current distinction between history and sociology is artificial and not based upon any distinction between the kinds of subject-matter terms they contain, but rather upon the amount of logic they use.
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